126 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 



ever, not ultimate. Description of facts, when 

 once we cease to be content with such description 

 as will subserve the purpose of calculation and 

 call for description of the fact as it really is, of 

 itself becomes metaphysical interpretation." 



We have seen that one of the aims of science 

 is to distinguish what "seems" from what "is," 

 and to do so generally, not particularly, is the 

 chief task of metaphysics. "Metaphysics sets 

 itself more systematically and universally than 

 any other science, to ask what, after all, is meant 

 by being real, and to what degree our various 

 scientific and non-scientific theories about the 

 world are in harmony with the universal charac- 

 teristics of real existence. Hence, Metaphysics 

 has been called "an attempt to become aware of 

 and to doubt all preconceptions"; and again, "an 

 unusually resolute effort to think consistently." 



Something is always going wrong, however, 

 when the boundaries between different disci- 

 plines begin to appear static, like stone walls. The 

 various disciplines are like the functions of an 

 organism, which work into one another's hands, 

 being complementary. Pigeon-holing is simply 

 a device, part of our intellectual division of labour. 

 Science is an intellectual inquiry with definite 

 purposes e. g. of discovering uniformities of 

 sequence, and with definite limitations, such as 

 that of not inquiring into the larger significance 



